Research ethics
To ensure the credibility of scientific research and maintain society’s trust in research, researchers must follow good scientific practice and take into account research ethics.
Research ethics is part of the responsible conduct of research. Ethics review covers the whole research process. Research ethics issues may relate to the research topic, methods and practices, or the research data. These issues include ethical governance procedures, informed consent, anonymity of subjects and withdrawal from research. In addition, they concern research permits granted and pending.
Responsibilities
Adherence to the principles of good scientific practice is primarily the responsibility of each individual researcher and research team, but the responsibility is also shared by the director of the research unit and the management of the research organisations involved.
If the applicant uses AI applications in preparing their application, they must also follow good scientific practice in this respect and take care of data protection in the application documents. The applicant is always responsible for the accuracy of the content of the application. We also recommend that applicants consult any guidelines that their research organisation may have drawn up.
Research ethics in review of applications
Research ethics is one of the criteria used in reviewing applications for RCF funding. Researchers applying for funding from the RCF must always describe the ethical issues related to their research.
If the research project involves ethical issues such as the processing of personal data, the use of laboratory animals or dual-use products, the principal investigator must explain in sufficient detail how these have been taken into account.
The PI must also demonstrate that they do not intend to apply research practices abroad that are considered unethical in Finland and Europe.
In addition to the relevant legislation, the guidelines of the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity apply to research ethics and its assessment: Finnish Code of Conduct for Research Integrity and Procedures for Handling Alleged Violations of Research Integrity in Finland (PDF). We also require that researchers follow ALLEA’s (All European Academies) European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity (PDF) when engaging in international collaboration and applying for EU funding. There are no conflicts between the guidelines of ALLEA and the National Board on Research Integrity. Finnish ethical guidelines also apply to Finnish researchers working abroad.
In addition, we recommend following UniPID’s (Finnish University Partnership for International Development) ethical guidelines for international research cooperation and the ethical guidelines for research involving the Sámi people in Finland.
We also recommend following other ethical guidelines and recommendations of the National Board on Research Integrity, such as those concerning agreeing on authorship in scientific publications.
Suspected violations of research integrity
The site of research is obliged to submit to the RCF’s Registrar’s Office the final report of any investigations concerning violation of research integrity by the PI or a researcher of an RCF-funded project.
We will not process a funding application if the applicant has been found guilty of research misconduct or some other serious violation of research integrity in the three years preceding the application. If we find out about the violation during the funding period, whatever is left of the funding period will be added to the three-year limit. If the applicant appeals the decision on the violation, and the appeal is successful, we will process the applicant’s new applications following normal procedures.
